Privacy Policy

Last Updated December 25, 2019

PrivateMail LLC is committed to protecting your privacy and developing technology that gives you a powerful and safe consumer experience. Please note when using our services that Private-Mail does not have access to any encrypted email or files stored on our servers. Decryption keys are stored locally on the user's machine. 

This Privacy Policy outlines how PrivateMail LLC, and any of its parent companies, subsidiaries, or other related companies based in the United States (collectively, “Private-Mail” or “we” or “us”) collect information, what information Private-Mail collects, how Private-Mail uses this information, to whom Private-Mail discloses this information, and how you can access, change, and remove your information.

COLLECTION OF YOUR INFORMATION

Private-Mail may collect personally identifiable information from you in various ways. Private-Mail may use the following sources:

  • When you sign up for an account;
  • When you submit payment information for processing payments through our merchant partners (Private-Mail does not store any credit card numbers);
  • When you contact Private-Mail or post comments on Private-Mail’s blog;
  • When uploading data on Private-Mail;
  • From a third party with your consent (e.g., your bank);
  • From our information technology systems;
  • Affiliates who opt to use the optional affiliate control panel will receive a temporary cookie;
  • Google may store a cookie for collecting anonymized analytics data (you may opt out here);
  • Apache Webserver logs (see apache.org; no usernames or passwords are ever logged by the webserver and the logs are regularly purged);
  • Private-Mail does not have access to any encrypted email or files stored on our servers. Decryption keys are stored locally on the user's machine. 
  • When you sign up for an account;
  • When you submit payment information for processing payments through our merchant partners (Private-Mail does not store any credit card numbers);
  • When you contact Private-Mail or post comments on Private-Mail’s blog;
  • When uploading data on Private-Mail;
  • From a third party with your consent (e.g., your bank);
  • From our information technology systems;
  • Affiliates who opt to use the optional affiliate control panel will receive a temporary cookie;
  • Google may store a cookie for collecting anonymized analytics data (you may opt out here);
  • Apache Webserver logs (see apache.org; no usernames or passwords are ever logged by the webserver and the logs are regularly purged);
  • Private-Mail does not have access to any encrypted email or files stored on our servers. Decryption keys are stored locally on the user's machine. 

 

Personally identifiable information refers to information about you that can be used to contact or identify you. It includes, but is not limited to, your name, phone number, email address, postal address, and social networking information. The collected information falls into the following categories:

  • identifiers (e.g., name, alias, postal address, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, or similar identifiers);
  • information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with an individual (e.g., credit card number, telephone number, address, or similar information.
  • internet or other electronic network activity (e.g., browsing history, search history, and information regarding a consumer’s interaction with an online site or application, or similar information);
  • geolocation data;
  • audio, electronic, or similar information; and
  • information drawn from any of the above to create a consumer profile that includes characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behaviors, or similar information.

 

Private-Mail may also collect certain non-identifying information, or aggregate information, such as anonymous demographic information including zip codes, dates of birth, customer preferences, information about customer computer hardware and software, as well as information about the links and pages that users access within Private-Mail’s website. Certain non-identifying information may be considered personally identifiable information if combined with other information which may enable you to be identified (such as a zip code with a street address); however, the same information when taken alone or combined with other non-identifying information, will be considered non-identifying information.

Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data through Private-Mail’s blog or to third parties through the use of Private-Mail’s services, such information may be collected and used by others.

Occasionally Private-Mail will offer links to and utilize third-party websites, such as those used to process payments from you on Private-Mails’s behalf. Private-Mail encourages you to review the privacy policies of these websites so that you can understand how these websites collect, use, and share your information. Private-Mail is not responsible for the privacy policies or other content on websites other than Private-Mail websites.

USE OF YOUR INFORMATION

Private-Mail may store and use your personally identifiable information for (i) communicating with you; (ii) product or service fulfillment, such as maintaining or servicing accounts, processing payments, or processing orders and transactions; (iii) voluntary marketing, promotional, and advertising purposes, such as to inform you of promotional offers from Private-Mail; (iv) internal operations, such as improving your customer experience – this includes auditing current interactions, optimizing user experience, and undertaking activities to verify and maintain the quality and safety of the services; (v) detecting security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive activity, and taking all necessary and appropriate steps to mitigate current and future risk; (vi) debugging and repairing internal information technology as necessary; (vii) undertaking internal research for technological development and demonstration; and (viii) sharing with trusted third-party service providers with your consent to help Private-Mail process payments and perform activities to improve your customer experience. Third parties are prohibited from using your personal information beyond providing services to Private-Mail and are required to maintain the information’s confidentiality and privacy. The categories of the third parties we share personal information with follow:

  • our affiliates, including companies within the Private-Mail family of companies;
  • payment processors and other companies that help facilitate transactions;
  • our banks, insurers, attorneys, and brokers;
  • companies that provide statistical analysis of your interactions with us;
  • companies that provide customer support; and
  • third parties approved by you.

 

The following categories of information are shared with trusted third-party service providers with your consent:

  • identifiers (e.g., name, alias, postal address, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, or similar identifiers);
  • information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with a particular individual (e.g., credit card number, telephone number, address, or similar information).
  • internet or other electronic network activity (e.g., browsing history, search history, and information regarding a consumer’s interaction with an online site or application, or similar information);
  • geolocation data;
  • audio, electronic, or similar information; and
  • information drawn from any of the above to create a consumer profile that includes characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behaviors, or similar information.

 

Private-Mail does not sell, rent, or lease your personally identifiable information to third parties. 

Private-Mail is not limited in our use of aggregate information that does not permit direct association with any specific individual, such as the number of users of our services, the geographic distribution of our users, the amount of information located or removed, etc.  For example, Private-Mail may use aggregate information concerning which links and pages users access within Private-Mail’s website for purposes of improving its blog and tutorials.

Private-Mail will disclose your personal information, without notice, if required to do so by law or when such action is necessary (a) to conform to the edicts of the law or to comply with legal process served; (b) to protect and defend the rights or property of Private-Mail; or (c) under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of the Private-Mail website or the public.

SECURITY PROTECTIONS FOR YOUR DATA

Private-Mail takes the security of your personal information very seriously.  Private-Mail uses reasonable administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to secure the personal information you share with us.

You are responsible for all activities that occur under your account.  The security of your Private-Mail account relies on your protection of your user profile information.  You are responsible for maintaining the security of your user profile information, including your password and for all activities that occur under your account. You may not share your password with anyone.  We will never ask you to send us your password or other sensitive information in an email, though we may ask you to enter this type of information on a Private-Mail website.

Any email or other communication purporting to be from one of our websites requesting your password or asking you to provide sensitive account information via email should be treated as unauthorized and suspicious and should be reported to us immediately at [email protected]. If you believe someone else has obtained access to your password, please change it immediately and report it immediately by emailing us at [email protected].

USE OF COOKIES AND SIMILAR TECHNOLOGY

Private-Mail websites may use a first party cookie to collect anonymous traffic data, a form of aggregate information. “Cookies” are simple text files stored on your computer for use by a browser. Private-Mail may use “cookies” to assist in data collection and to track visitor website usage and trends to help us better serve you. If you reject cookies, you will still be able to view our websites, but your ability to use some areas of the websites will be limited. Some of our business partners and publishers (e.g., analytical tracking software providers) use cookies and tracking technologies on our websites. We have no access to or control over these third-party cookies or tracking technologies. This Privacy Policy covers the use of cookies on our websites by us only and does not cover the use of cookies or tracking technologies by any such business partner.

When you visit Private-Mail’s website, Private-Mail automatically collects the name of the website you visited from (called the “referring page”) and the name of the website you chose to visit immediately after ours (called the “exit page”), and information about other websites you have recently visited. This information is used to improve our website, but we cannot identify you from any information we receive from cookies. Some browsers have a “do not track” feature that lets you tell websites that you do not want to have your online activities tracked. These features are not yet uniform, and our websites are not currently set up to respond to those signals for tracking on our websites.

PARTICIPATION IN INTERNET BASED ADVERTISING

Private-Mail may also participate in interest-based advertising using similar technology. Therefore, you may see advertising on our websites tailored to how you browse or shop, or you may see advertising for Private-Mail and its properties on other websites based on your browsing behavior across websites. Some websites where we may advertise belong to ad networks that use your web browsing history to choose which ads to display on their network websites; these ads include advertising for Private-Mail and its websites, but no personal information about you is shared with those third party ad networks. Other websites where you see our ads, such as Facebook, may use interest preferences that you have chosen on those sites, as well as registration and other information about you, to choose which ads to display to you. Some internet browsers, mobile devices, and websites such as Facebook may offer opt-outs for interest-based advertising. Please refer to the website that you are visiting, your browser, or your device settings for additional information.

You can opt-out of receiving interest-based ads from third parties who are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) or who follow the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising by visiting the opt-out pages on the NAI website (http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/) and DAA website (http://www.aboutads.info/choices/).

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

We utilize Google Analytics, which stores information about what pages you visit, how long you are on our website, how you got here, and what links you click on. This analytics data is collected via a JavaScript tag in the pages of our website and is not tied to any Personally Identifiable Information. If you would like to opt out of Google Analytics, Google has developed a tool that works with major internet browsers to permit you to opt-out. For more information and to install their opt-out tool, please click here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

Private-Mail’s websites are not intended for use by visitors under the age of 18.  Private-Mail does not knowingly collect personal information from visitors under the age of 18 in connection with its Digital Services. Visitors under 18 to our websites must not disclose or provide any personally identifiable information and must immediately leave this our websites. Upon notification that a visitor under 18 has provided us with personally identifiable information, we will delete that visitor’s personally identifiable information from our records. If you believe we might have any information from a visitor under the age of 18, please email us at [email protected].

USERS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES

Private-Mail is based in the United States, and the Digital Services are hosted here.  If you are using the Digital Services from another country, the laws governing our website’s collection and use of personal information may be different from the laws of your country.  If you decide to use the Digital Services or share your personal information with Private-Mail, you are agreeing to be governed by the laws of the United States, and you are expressly consenting to the transfer of your data to the United States.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
Private-Mail will occasionally update this Privacy Policy. Private-Mail encourages you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to be informed of how Private-Mail is using and protecting your information.

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

This Privacy Policy applies only to the Digital Services. The Digital Services may contain links to third-party websites not operated or controlled by Private-Mail . The policies and procedures we described here do not apply to these third-party websites. The links from the Digital Services do not imply that Private-Mail endorses or has reviewed these third-party websites or their privacy policies. We suggest contacting those sites directly for information on their privacy policies.  We are not responsible for the policies or practices of third parties.

CONTACTING PRIVATE-MAIL

Please feel free to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions about Private-Mail's Privacy Policy.